Rodrigo Duterte won the 2016 Philippine presidential election on 9 May 2016 promising to kill tens of thousands of criminals and urging people to kill drug addicts. As Mayor of Davao City, Duterte was criticised by groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) for the extrajudicial killings of hundreds of street children, petty criminals and drug users carried out by the Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group with which he was allegedly involved.
Despite earlier pronouncements in front of the media and public crowds, Duterte has denied any involvement in the alleged vigilante killings and said that the Davao Death Squad does not exist. According to a spokesman, Duterte does not support or endorse the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects. Foreign affairs secretary Perfecto Uasay Jr. stated that Duterte "has always ensured that there will be investigations of any allegations of extrajudicial killings".
According to the Philippines Dangerous Drugs Board, the government drug policy-making body, out of a population of approximately 100 million, 1.8 million Filipinos used illegal drugs in 2015, the laters official survey published, down from 6.7 million in 2004.
Duterte said in his state of the nation address that data from the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency showed there were 3 million drug addicts 2-3 years ago, which he said may have increased to 3.7 million.
President Duterte has alleged that the Philippines is becoming a "narco-state" in order to justify the so-called war on drugs. There is little evidence to show this is true. The Philippines has a low prevalence rate of drug users, compared to the global average, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). - Amnesty International, 7 October 2016
